"I'm old enough to still be excited by the 'newness' of multicultural art, but I know my students have grown up thinking of monoculturalism as the exception rather than the rule."--Kris McDermott on the Interstitial Arts message board. How aware are YA authors of their readers' expectations for multiculturalism? How do you meet this expectation if your own background is less than worldly? How do you create a reasonably and realistically multicultural set of characters without resorting to tokenism? How do multicultural tales differ depending on whether the multiculturalism is incidental or integral to the plot, and what does each kind of story tell its readers about the nature of culture?
I would appreciate input, and to know what, if you were an audience member, you might want to know about the topic, or specifically from the panelists, who are: Victoria Janssen (L), Alaya Dawn Johnson, Anil Menon, Vandana Singh, Jean-Louis Trudel.
Thanks!
